


The Madness of Alice

by CavannaRose



Series: Alice Beyond the Rabbit Hole [1]
Category: Alice in Wonderland (2010), Alice's Adventures in Wonderland & Related Fandoms
Genre: Gen, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Insanity
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-31
Updated: 2016-04-21
Packaged: 2018-05-30 06:13:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,035
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6412249
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CavannaRose/pseuds/CavannaRose
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Alice was never a girl named Jane, or was she? The tattered mind of a girl on the edge.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

The nightmares all began the same. The aging man in the crisp white jacket sat at a broad, dark oaken desk. In his hand was a retractable pen, that he slowly clicked. Click, click, click. Like a metronome. His voice was stern and calm, and he called her "Jane". Every time he called her Jane she got irrationally angry. She wasn't Jane. That wasn't her name! She knew who she was. She was Alice! Then she'd be dragged, screaming from the room, two faceless monsters pinning her arms to her sides. They locked her away and stuck her all full of needles, until the drooping violets on the windowsill stopped singing their nursery rhymes.

She always woke from those horrid dreams in a panic, sweat plastering the shorn blonde locks to her pale forehead. Her hair used to be long and lovely, curling and golden, tied up in a bright blue bow. The man in the white coat had taken that from her too, but she'd shown him. She'd played his little game of docility and obedience. Stopped screaming and fighting, even though the nightmares never recalled that. She had taken his pills, and pretended that she had been tamed, and the faceless monsters had gotten complacent. One day she'd just disappeared. Made her escape.

The nightmares were the first sign that she was vanishing again. She had reclaimed her name, but the delusions had followed her. Found her where she was hiding out. She'd had to risk another doctor. Someone to help her feel normal. Angrily she shushed the gentlemanbug buzzing by her shoulder. He shouldn't say such things about the marigold's tea set anyhow, it was rude.

She fought the delusions, trying to piece together what was real and what was just in her head. Which memories were false, which were history. She had a vague impression of a wood shed where bad things had happened, but that felt more like a nightmare. Whereas the memories of falling down the rabbit hole to a land where things were all topsy turvy were vivid as if day had just dawned.

The delusions were getting worse, not better. No matter what this new doctor prescribed her. Clozapine, risperidone, aripiprazole, olanzapine, quetiapine, and ziprasidone. Anti-psychotics to tame the chemicals running rampant in her brain. It was hard, hard to maintain without revealing her past medical history, without proving who she had been rather than who she was now. Alice was afraid. Afraid that the man in the white jacket would come back and lock her away once more. She hated that horrible place with the Styrofoam plates and rubber beds. The screams from down the hall had kept her up late into the night. It was awful, and stalked her nightmares until she felt like she couldn't breathe. Like the faceless monsters were sitting on her chest, holding her down and pouring their vitriol directly into her brain through a hole in her forehead.

The man in white had called Alice a "guest", but she and the others had known the truth. They were prisoners. Locked there, in that time before. Assigned names and identities that were not their own, dancing to the man's tune. They couldn't take her back, she'd burn them all to the ground. The beetles in the bathroom had told her how. So she clung to this new life she built herself, pretending to a new doctor that everything was alright, struggling to suppress the worst of the madness without revealing what was truly the crux of the problem.


	2. Chapter 2

Alice sat quietly in the garden, listening to the flowers and insects quarrel with one another about the proper pronunciation of the word 'croquet'. As much as she longed to join in the lively debate, she maintained her silence. If He caught her behaving in such a manner, actions He considered 'insane', it would be confinement to the little white room again, with no visitors other than Him. She shuddered, and almost if summoned by her very thoughts, His voice came slithering out of the shadows. Alice stared harder into the lilacs, eyes forward, willing Him away with all her being. Instead, a heavy hand settled on her shoulder, making the young blonde tense up.

"It's considered polite to greet someone when they call to you, Jane." His voice had an odd tonal quality to it, and it oozed down her spine like a thousand fat slugs. At her continued refusal to speak, He began squeezing her thin shoulder, digging thick fingers painfully just at the gap between her shoulder and collar bone. A small squeak of pain escaped her lips, eliciting a chuckle from the older man that Alice could feel clinging to her skin like a film. "You're such a bad little girl, Jane. Must I tell the orderlies that you grew violent and resistant again?"

A gasp of horror escaped her trembling lips, and Alice quickly turned to face Him, as best as she could while He still grasped her arm. "Please... no..." Her quivering voice brought an anticipatory smile to His face that instantly made her regret it, and she attempted to recoil. His grip tightened marginally, making her wince. How could one smile threaten worse than a legion of bandersnatch?

"Now Jane, I'm your Doctor. Whyever are you so frightened child?" Why did no one see the shadows behind His eyes? Alice bit her lip, shaking in His grasp as He eyed her in that hollow, hungry way, as if He could devour her light, siphon t from her marrow and fill up that empty place within Him. He pulled her closer, her feeble resistance almost imperceptible against His implacable will.

Alice had faced down the Red Queen at High Dudgeon, but this Man in His crisp white coat had her quelled, with His needles and controlled violence, and the new name He had stamped upon her every possession. "Come now, Jane. It's time for your private session." Quivering like the cattails down by the murky creek bed, she let herself be led away, a single tear tracking down her young face. Behind her she could hear the lilies harsh whispers to the bumblebees.

_Alice is in trouble._


End file.
